Eighteenth annual clinical-medical-ethics conference to focus on healthcare reform and decision making

October 20, 2006

The MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago will host its 18th annual conference on Friday and Saturday, November 10 to 11, 2006, at the Max Palevsky theater in Ida Noyes Hall, 1212 E. 59th Street, on the University of Chicago campus. The two-day conference will focus on the chances of meaningful healthcare reform in the near future and will also examine an array of contemporary issues and ethical challenges faced by caregivers and patients.

Day one will feature talks on healthcare reform by Bruce Vladeck, president of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and former head of the Healthcare Financing Administration (now CMS); Ralph Muller, CEO of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and former president of the University of Chicago Hospitals; Dan Brock, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at Harvard; Nancy Kane, professor of health management at Harvard; Matthew Wynia, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago and director of the Institute for Ethics at the American Medical Association; and Jeff Goldsmith, CEO of Health Futures, Inc.

Day two will feature a debate between two renowned healthcare economic theorists--with radically opposed views--on "Fairness and Markets: Should Access to Healthcare be Determined by the Ability to Pay?" One of the nation’s leading and most eloquent authorities on healthcare economics, Uwe Reinhardt, professor of political economy at Princeton, will match wits with Richard Epstein, professor at the University of Chicago Law School and senior fellow in the MacLean Center, one of the most provocative, controversial and influential legal theorists in the U.S. Reinhardt has long been critical of the ability of the marketplace to drive healthcare reform. Epstein, a libertarian, has argued for a hands-off, market-guided approach to healthcare change. Jordan Cohen, President Emeritus of the Association of American Medical Colleges, and newly elected president of the Gold Humanism Foundation, will moderate.

The second day of the conference will also include presentations on a broad range of topics in clinical ethics, including research ethics, genetic testing, and surrogate decision makers. Invited speakers Daniel Sulmasy of New York Medical College and Daniel Brock of Harvard Medical School will be joined by more than 20 former fellows who studied medical ethics at the MacLean Center and return each year to share current projects.